The Last Five Years
by TheSilentPen
Summary: "Sometimes love isn't enough." Rising Broadway star Rachel Berry fell in love with and married struggling actress Quinn Fabray. Their love should have been enough. But sometimes love can't keep the cracks in the foundation from widening and swallowing everything whole. AU.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee or any of its characters, nor The Last Five Years.

**A/N:** Having a little bit of writer's block on my other story, and I had the idea for this. It's based upon the musical **The Last Five Years. ** It's a story about the dissolution of the relationship between Quinn and Rachel.Like the musical, the story will be told from two different POVs, Quinn's and Rachel's. Quinn will start at the divorce and proceed to the beginning, Rachel will start at the beginning of their relationship and proceed to the divorce. The two of them will meet in the middle.

**This will not be a happy story.** This is your trigger warning.

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think.

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**The Last Five Years**

_TheSilentPen_

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_Still Hurting_

Quinn Fabray

Year 5

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'_Sometimes love isn't enough_.'

Those words weren't supposed to be true.

They were the words of someone who'd given up. Of a jaded, bitter person at the end of his rope. Someone with no hope in life. Not a single prayer left.

Because wasn't love supposed to be beautiful? Wasn't love supposed to outlast all difficulties? Surmount all obstacles? Weather the storm?

…Wasn't _love_ supposed to be forever?

But her love wasn't forever.

Her love crashed and burned. Her love was expunged long before pain of death separated them. It had been killed. Murdered by life. Murdered by the cool venom of jealousy and loathing. Murdered by deliberate mistakes.

And the blood of their separation… the hands responsible for severing the bond between them?

It remained, a fresh, stinging burgundy whetting the edge of the blade she'd used to put an end to it. It stung her nostrils with the scent of its melancholy iron and brought with it memories of what had been.

The pealing laughter and the blinding, even whiteness of her wife's smile. The warmth of her hand, the way her arms locked perfectly about Quinn's waist, the way tanned fingers ran through choppy blonde locks to scratch at her neck when an angry glint powered the gold spark in her eyes.

God, it brought memories of all those times…

And it brought thoughts of what _could_ have been, had they not given up. Had Quinn not given up.

…Had _Rachel_ not given up.

But Rachel _had_ given up.

She'd sat there, perched delicately on the coffee stained upholstery of their green velvet couch, in the heart of an apartment they'd shared the last four years of their life, cluttered with scripts and mismatched china tea cups, with that ugly mahogany case Quinn absolutely abhorred filled to the brim with Barbra Streisand regalia, dressed in mud stained boots, ripped jeans, a tank, and a trench, with wavy brunette locks wetly plastered against her forehead and her red brown eyes sorrowful, in that apartment where they'd shared their lives…

Rachel sat there, closed her eyes, and buried her face in her hands, shoulders trembling with sobs as you stood mere steps away, wordlessly watching her _finally_ _break_ after years of trying to make your relationship work. After pretending to be happy for so long despite being unhappy for so much longer.

She sat there for so long, hands pressed to her eyes, tears dripping from her palm, breathing shakily, shoulders trembling feebly.

She sat there till the sobs stilled, till her fingers quaked, till she could finally look up at Quinn with red rimmed eyes and stare at her long and hard. They traced every crease of her face, memorized her features, drunk her in, trying to commit her to memory. To write Quinn into the worn, tear-stained pages at the end of their story.

And then Rachel stood. She stood, lifted her hand to the inside of her coat and produced a thick packet of papers, slowly bending to set them on the table. She lifted that trembling hand once more to the glinting silver of her rings… those rings Quinn had given her so long ago, and pulled them from her finger, leaving it bear.

She placed those rings down atop the crumpled papers, her throat working furiously as she fought the tears. She straightened, and she looked at Quinn with brown eyes devoid of that loving spark that had taken so _long_ to go out.

Rachel stepped forward, the gentle click of her boots against the marble of the tile echoing throughout the apartment. She strode forward slowly, stumbling as though wounded till she stood inches from Quinn.

She lifted a trembling, naked hand to Quinn's cheek, brushing away tears Quinn hadn't even felt fall. Rachel kissed the salt from her cheeks, stroked down her cheeks, placed her forehead against her wife's and closed her eyes.

She closed her eyes and kissed Quinn one last time, lips trembling against one another.

A hole ripped fresh in Quinn's heart at the touch of Rachel's lips. She grasped at Rachel's arms and held her steady against her chest, she felt the pound of Rachel's heart, tasted the bitterness in her tears, and felt the agony of the finality in Rachel's touch.

Lids closed over emerald speckled, hazel eyes and tears streamed down her cheeks. She shook against Rachel's petite figure. She desperately took in the cinnamon scent of her shampoo and the warmth of her hands.

Then their lips parted, and Rachel rubbed her arm one last time, whispering against her ear.

"_Goodbye, Quinn."_

When Quinn opened her eyes, Rachel was gone.

..._Gone_.

She was gone, and she'd left this gaping hole… this _pain_ in her heart.

The papers Rachel left behind were divorce papers. Papers stating that their property would be divided accordingly and that the reasons for their separation were 'irreconcilable differences.'

It would be quick and painless.

Rachel had made it that way.

So Quinn gathered the most important parts of her life into a duffel bag (clothing, toiletries, books, pictures, and important documents), aware of the yawning emptiness at the center of her heart, and then stood at that lone coffee table, looking about the apartment.

This had been her life for the last five years. A life full of smiles, of laughter…

Of late nights left waiting for someone who'd never come home, of desperate auditions, of summers spent apart, of empty chairs at lonely dinners, and of shouting matches that echoed through the lonely walls of their apartment.

It hadn't been a perfect life. _God, _it hadn't been a _good_ life…

…But it had been hers… it had been _theirs_.

She looked down at the paper, the naked line waiting her signature.

Quinn pulled a pen from her purse, knelt, and shakily wrote her name in trembling cursive.

It wasn't _their_ life anymore.

Like Rachel, she lifted her hand to the warm silver of her rings, letting out a slow, shuddering breath as she pulled them free of her finger. She heard them ring against Rachel's as they fell, neglected against the table.

Quinn stood, stumbling toward the door, biting her lip to dam up the sobs caught in her throat.

She grabbed the shining brass of the door, muscles convulsing as she pulled it open, a chill of late autumn air cool making her breath mist in the falling darkness of noon.

Quinn pulled herself through the door, leaning against the frame of the door, looking over her shoulder into the dark of the apartment.

Her eyes scanned over it one last time, remembering everything as it was, the aching pulse of her heart _pounding _in her ears.

'_Sometimes…'_

She stepped into the rain, tears mixing with the rain as her hand tightened about the warm metal of the knob.

'…_Love isn't enough.'_

The door closed.

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**A/N:** Alright, there you go, the first chapter. I hope you enjoyed.

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